Laleget Danza is an international dance company based in Mexico City which was founded by Diego Vázquez in 2005. It has appeared in various theaters and festivals in Mexico including the Festival Internacional Cervantino in 2008 and 2011.
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Company
It is a small ensemble of young dancers and choreographers from different countries, such as Japan, Portugal, Netherlands, United States and Mexico. It is based in Mexico City dedicated to contemporary dance with the intention to create work that is relevant to the times. The company was founded in 2005 by its current artistic director and choreographer Diego Vázquez, and the name Laleget is the Hebrew word for “to go".
Laleget Danza has produced a repertoire through which dancers go beyond simple performance to recreate their own inner worlds, as well as the reality that surrounds them. As its Hebraic meaning suggests, Laleget Danza aims “to go” directly to the soul of the audience, moving emotions and leading the mind in a state of reflection.
Laleget Danza performs regularly in theatres such as Palacio de Bellas Artes, Teatro de las Artes, Teatro de la Ciudad Esperanza Iris, Teatro de la Danza INBA, amongst others. Laleget has been invited to participate in Festival del Desierto, in 2007, in San Luis Potosí; Mexico City's Performing Art Festival, in 2007; and in the Festival Internacional Cervantino, in Guanajuato, in 2008 and 2011. The company toured to Spain with the grant "Rutas Escénicas” of FONCA.
Diego Vázquez – artistic director, choreographer and dancer
With 11 years of experience as a choreographer, Vazquez has created 24 works, which are part of the repertoire of Laleget Danza, and other companies in México like Jalisco Ballet, Morelos Ballet, and Fóramen M. With Laleget Danza, he regularly presents his work in the most important venues of Mexico. His pieces range from contemporary versions of The Nutcracker, Petrushka and "Les noces" by Stravinsky, to original works based on scores by Pärt, Chávez, Revueltas, Brahms, Chopin, J. S. Bach but also productions from contemporary sound artists and producers such as Raúl Maduro, among others.
Vázquez was awarded a grant to complete his studies in dance by the government of The Netherlands and received his BFA from Codarts. As a dancer, Vázquez has performed pieces by Angelin Perljocaj, Jiri Kilyán, Itzik Galili, Neel Verdoorn, Keith Derrick-Randolph, Anabelle Lopez Ochoa, Glenn van der Hoff, Tania Pérez Salas and Raúl Parrao. In 2006, he was invited to tour with the National Ballet of Mexico.
He has been awarded the Young Artists Grant by the National Foundation for Culture and Arts of Mexico. He regularly receives support from the Government of the State of Morelos and the National Council for Culture and Arts, Danza UNAM, the National Foundation for Culture and Arts of Mexico and for the production of his choreographies and international tours.
Repertoire
Their repertoire has include works such as Esch, Foreign Land, Invitación, Esther, Enraptured Time, Et le vent, Clean Slate, Tiempo de mariachi, Backwards II, Image.jpg, Attachment, False Cognate, and Pendiente. The later is a coproduction Curaçao-Mexico, a collaboration between choreographer and dancer Faizah Grootens, sound artist Raúl Maduro, and Vázquez.
Vazquez has created contemporary versions of The Nutcracker, Petrushka, and Les noces, by Stravinsky.
Enraptured Time was created by the company for the 2008 Festival Internacional Cervantino composed of three works: instrumental, voice and video. It is based on eight songs by writer and scientist Adelbert von Chamisso which deal with the life cycle of a long-term couple.
Tierra ajena was created to evoke feelings of melancholy, loneliness and uncertainty related to unfulfilled dreams, especially those related to immigration.
Petrushka is based on the work by Alexandre Benois and Igor Stravinsky. The music remains mostly from Stravinsky . The story is about a puppet with a human heart, but whose life is tragic. In the children’s version, the story is less tragic with comic elements, with the puppet returning to life at the end. At the end of the show, children in the audience are invited on stage to dance with the company. The work was originally presented at the Sala Miguel Covarrubias at UNAM, where it ran for three months. It was then presented at the Festival Internacional Cervantino in 2011 with support from the Coordinación Nacional de Desarrollo Cultural Infantil Alas y Raíces del CONACULTA, the Government of the State of Morelos and Coordinación de Difusión Cultural UNAM.
False Cognate is inspired by the relationship the choreographer has with the Bible and the confrontation he suffers through it. False Cognate is a personal journey that originates in the mind, and arises from confusions that might occur during an inner conversation. There are misinterpretations in meanings and significations, when one comes to believe concepts that are a lie, an illusion or an unresolved riddle.
False cognate is a term used in linguistics to describe when two words in different languages are similar in form and pronunciation, but have different roots and possibly different meanings.
Pendiente is a contemporary dance duet inspired on images, atmospheres and situations of a novel by Gabriel García Marquez, Chronicle of a Death Foretold.
This is a non-narrative choreography, but addresses recurring themes in the novel such as a prohibited love, violence, revenge and disdain. García Marquez' work, an essential part of Latin American cultural identity, serves as a meeting point for the three creators of this piece. It is an encounter of two different nationalities but with shared roots: Raúl Maduro, sound artist from Curaçao, Diego Vázquez, Mexican dancer and choreographer and Faizah Grootens, dancer and choreographer from Curaçao.